Keeping in mind the rising number of security threats on the web, the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi will start a new centre for capacity building in cyber security since “national security will be based on cyber security in the future”.

Stating that the country faces a strong cyber security threat, director of the institute R K Shevgaonkar said, “Cyber security is a hot area today. All the ministries want trained manpower for this purpose and we want to start a consolidated centre.”

The centre will aim to create trained manpower through courses for industry and academia. “We want to partner with the Ministry of Defence as well as the telecom and home ministries for this. They can spell out their requirements and we can address that through research here.”

A letter of intent for setting up such a centre was signed between IIT-Delhi and the University of Nebraska during the India visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Shevgaonkar also said University of Nebraska was a first choice since it is known for its cyber and space security programmes, but IIT-Delhi will partner with other universities too for this centre. The new centre will be called Centre for Cyber Systems and Information Assurance.